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This pioneering site is where new journalism meets oral history. It contains fresh and archive long-form audio interviews with interesting people, largely uncut and free to the user for non-commercial use. Please also visit our extensive archive of print and photo posts at the main Generalist site here.

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Saturday, June 2. 2007

We’re in a small conference room with smoked glass walls in the office of the publishers Chatto & Windus, on the second floor of Random House publishers on Horseferry Road, London. Jon comes in looking smart as button and right from the off the conversation flows.

Jon is one our best music and culture writers, who cut his teeth on Sounds and Melody Maker in the 1970s and The Face in the 1980s and penned the single best account of the punk period in his wonderful book ‘England’s Dreaming’, for which he is perhaps best known.

Since then he has continued to write prolifically for the mainstream papers and music magazines, to compile some excellent cd collections and produce documentaries, while writing another major work – ‘Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875-1945’ – that has just been published and is the major focus of our interview.

We begin with Jon’s own teenage years and trace the whole genesis of the project, reflecting on the punk years in the process. We examine the book in detail, which runs from the invention of the concept of adolescence by one of America’s first famous psychiatrists to the invention of the teenager as the ultimate consumer in the late 1940s – a fascinating journey.

In addition, Jon has much to say about Nick Hornby and Tony Blair, the digital revolution, why music shouldn’t be free, and the death of Nirvana. Never less than fascinating, hear one of the sharpest minds around in full flow.

See The Generalist’s main site for more information and links on Jon Savage.